God Save The Children

mean teacherOnce upon a blog post, I made a little joke about becoming a Hebrew school teacher. Well, I have some very scary news for next year’s kindergarteners of Savannah’s Shalom School: It’s you, me, the Torah, a coupla tamborines and maybe some warm apple juice and crackers if you behave yourselves on Sunday mornings, kidlets. We’ll get along just fine as long as you pretend I know more than you do. And your parents don’t read this blog.

At the risk of called out as self-absorbed by the big kids on the Jblog block (poor Amishav! What a dumb drama to have happen to the wrong person, but he seems to have handled it with his usual humility and grace), I need a little navel-gazing moment: At 25, I had a shaved head and hairy armpits, drove a VW camper and wrote a newspaper column that inspired weekly death threats. At 35, I wear make-up every day, am sporting something suspiciously close to a sensible mom haircut, drive a beige minivan and have just accepted a job as a Sunday school teacher. If I hadn’t somehow morphed into a responsible adult in spite of my best efforts, I’d beg one of you to come to Savannah with a stack of Charles Bukowski books and some cocaine and kidnap me for a weekend.

*Sigh* At least now I have a true reason to buy some of Susan Fischer Weis’ fabulous chag-themed Yontifications.

6 thoughts on “God Save The Children

  1. Yo! Yenta! Sorry it’s been a while chica! I see you’ve been keeping up the good fight down there south of the the Mason-Dixon. Thanks for the kind shout out. But just because you’re going to be a hebrew school teacher don’t mean you have to totally morph into minivan mom 24/7. I bet you’ll be finding ways to sneak in some african dance moves into that classroom by this time next year. Have fun! Working with kids can be great and I know you’ll make the most of it.

  2. At 25, I had a shaved head and hairy armpits, drove a VW camper and wrote newspaper column that inspired weekly death threats.

    Ok, I was going to make a snarky comment but you don’t deserve it. At 25 I never would have not said it, but at 38 I have a little more self control.

    It is kind of fun to look back and see how life has changed.

  3. If I lived in Savannah I wouldn’t mind having you teach my young’ns a thing or two about a thing or two. I just hope the uptight weirdo’s you hear about in the deep south don’t stumble upon this blog and catch a fit over your *creative* past. We’ve all been through those phases. I guess when you have to fend for a few kids your paternal instincts kick in and everything changes. Atleast to most of us.

  4. “We’ll get along just fine as long as you pretend I know more than you do. And your parents don’t read this blog.”

    hahaha … my Nathan will be in Kindergarten next year!

  5. Ami ~ thanks, man. As a matter of fact, I manage to sneak African dance moves into most everything I do, including shopping for toilet paper.

    Jack ~ What, what? Make the comment already! I’m sure my husband had made worse – he loves to remind me that when we met I had the hippie/punk thing going on, but I tell him I now have clean armpits and almost normal hair, while he’s still losing his.

    joe ~ I bet when you become a daddy you’ll still freestyle like a mofo.

    Dan ~ Holy moly! Nathan’s not the biter, is he? (kidding) At least I know there’s one parent who won’t turn me in to the Savannah frum police…um, you won’t, will you? See you at Mickve Israel tomorrow night?

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